George S. Boutwell

“ So should liberty be. 'American liberty' has much the sound as if you would say 'American privilege.' And there is the rub. Look to history, and when your heart saddens at the fact that liberty never yet was lasting in any corner of the world, and in any age, you will find the key of it in the gloomy truth that all who were yet free regarded liberty as their privilege, instead of regarding it as a principle. The nature of every privilege is exclusiveness, that of a principle is communicative. Liberty is a principle,—its community is it security,—exclusiveness is its doom. What is aristocracy? ”

“ What we call civilization,—passing from an inferior to a superior condition of existence,—is a mental and moral process. If mind is the capital,—the producing force of society,—what shall we say of the person or community that neglects its improvement? Certainly, all that we should say of the miser, and all that was said of the timid servant who buried his talent in the earth. If one mind is neglected, then we fail as a generation, a state, a nation, as members of the human family, to answer the highest purposes of existence. ”

“ More than all else, and as the culmination of all else, we have demonstrated the practicability of a government of the people, by the people, and for the people. All this has been made possible by and through a system of universal public education—a system which taxes the whole people, and educates the whole people in good learning, and in the cardinal virtues which adorn, dignify and elevate the individual man and furnish the only security for progressive, successful, illustrious national life. ”

“ Gentlemen, I believe—yes, I know—that the people of the North are as true to the government and the Union of the States now as our fathers were when they stood shoulder to shoulder upon the field, fighting for the principles upon which that Union rests. If I thought the time had come when it would be fit or proper to consider amendments to the Constitution at all, I believe that we should have no trouble with you, except upon this question of slavery in the Territories. You cannot demand of us at the North anything that we will not grant, unless it involves a sacrifice of our principles. ”

“ The corruption of our political maxims has relaxed the tone of public morals and degraded the public authorities from terror to the accomplices of evil-doers. Platforms for fools— plunder for thieves—offices for service—power for ambition—unity in these essentials—diversity in the immaterial matters of policy and legislation—charity for every frailty—the voice of the people is the voice of God—these maxims have sunk into the public mind; have presided at the administration of public affairs, have almost effaced the very idea of public duty. ”

“ We are, through family, religious, and public education, to take security of the childhood and youth of the land for the preservation of the institutions we have, and for the growth, greatness, and justice, of the republic. Liberty in America, if you will admit the distinction, is a growth and not a creation. The institutions of liberty in America have the same character. By many centuries of trial, struggle, and contest, through many years of experience, sometimes joyous, and sometimes sad, the fact and the institutions of liberty in America have been evolved. ”

“ Not we, not we, are responsible for what happens in South Carolina between the slaves and their masters. Our business is to save the Union; to re-establish the authority of the Union over the rebels in South Carolina; and, if between the masters and their slaves collisions arise, the responsibility is upon those masters who, forgetting their allegiance to the Government, lent themselves to this foul conspiracy, and thus have been involved in ruin. As a warning, let South Carolina be the first of the States of the Republic in which emancipation to the enslaved is proclaimed. ”

“ Nor is labor, the penalty for sin, a punishment merely, but a divine means of reformation. It is, therefore, a moral discipline that all should submit to; and especially is it a means by which the youth here are to be prepared for the duties of life. But industry is not only near to all the virtues; it is itself a virtue, as idleness is a vice. The word labor is, of course, used in the broadest signification. Labor is any honest employment, or use of the head or hands, which brings good to ourselves, and consequently, though indirectly, brings good to our fellow-men. ”

“ It is high among the virtues which men in this state of existence may exhibit. Patriotism is not merely a barren attachment to the country in which we were born, nor is it that narrow yet holy feeling which leads us to look with affection upon the spot of our nativity,—upon the hills over which we have roamed in childhood and youth; but a large and noble view of the entire nation,—a regard for its institutions, social, moral, civil and religious, crowned by a manly spirit which leads its possessor to peril all in their defence. The patriot is devoted and self-sacrificing. ”

“ History does not carry us to a time when gold was not the recognized standard for the measurement of every other kind of property, and that not by one tribe or people only, but by mankind in every clime and in every stage of savageness or of civilization.
As the Mint Bill and the demonetization of silver have occupied the attention of the country for a third of a century, and as there may be a revival of the controversy at a time in the future I have thought it wise for me to make a record of the facts in the most enduring form at my command. ”

“ And always, as in the beginning, the reliance of this school is upon the people of the commonwealth, whose voice has spoken into existence another instrumentality to give eyes to the blind, ears to the deaf, a heart for the work of this life, and a hope for an hereafter, to those who from neglect and vicious example would soon pass the period of reformation. But may the people always bear in mind the indisputable truth, that schools for the criminal and the exposed yield not their perfect fruits in a day or a year! ”

“ The sentiment of the Revolution was altogether moral. There was an entire absence of the spirit of revenge, or rapine, or blood. They never for a moment placed as much reliance upon their numbers and strength as upon the justice of their cause and the existence of a Supreme Ruler, who controls the affairs of men. Such was the tone of the press, the pulpit and the bar. Everywhere the morality of the contest was examined and the ground carefully tested at each step. Not by leading men only, but by all those who had a vote to give in a town meeting or an arm to sustain the weapons of war. ”

“ It is to this fearful demoralization of the Government and the people that we must ascribe the disastrous defections which now perplex us with the fear of change in all that constituted our greatness. The operation of the Government has been withdrawn from the great public interests, in order that competing parties might not be embarrassed in the struggle for power by diversities of opinion upon questions of policy; and the public mind, in that struggle, has been exclusively turned on the slavery question, which no interest required to be touched by any department of this Government. ”

“ There is not a father, by whose side, in his daily or nightly walk, these creatures pass; there is not a mother among all the ranks of loving mothers in this land; there is no one risen from the state of childhood, but shall be responsible, in his or her degree, for this enormity. There is not a country throughout the earth on which it would not bring a curse. There is no religion upon earth that it would not deny; there is no people on earth that it would not put to shame."
This institution, then, in the true relation of things, is not the glory of the state, but its shame. ”

“ The great issue with slavery is upon us. We cannot escape it. The policy of men may have precipitated the contest; but, from the first, it was inevitable. The result is not doubtful. The labor, the business, the wealth, the learning, the civilization, of the whole country, South as well as North, will ultimately be found on the side of freedom. The power of the North is not in injustice. We are bound to be just; we can afford to be generous. Concede to our brethren of the South every constitutional right without murmuring and without complaint. ”

“ Is it not worth something to the rich man, who cannot, from the circumstances of the case, teach self-reliance around the family hearth, to send his child to school to learn this lesson with other children, that he may be stimulated, that he may be provoked to exertions which he would not otherwise have made? For, be it remembered that in our schools public sentiment is as well marked as in a college, or a town, or a nation; that it moves forward in the same way. And the great object of a teacher should be to create a public sentiment in favor of virtue. ”

“ Without the right to vote he is secure in nothing. I cannot consent, after all the guards and safeguards which may be prepared for the defence of the colored men in the enjoyment of their rights,—I cannot consent that they shall be deprived of the right to protect themselves. One hundred and eighty-six thousand of them have been in the army of the United States. They have stood in the places of our sons and brothers and friends. Many of them have fallen in the defence of the country. They have earned the right to share in the government ”

“ So the nation which avenges real or fancied wrongs crushes out the elements of humanity and a higher life, which, properly cultivated, might lead an erring mortal to virtue and peace. The proper object of punishment is not vengeance, but the public safety and the reformation of the criminal. Indeed, we may say that the sole object of punishment is the reformation of the criminal; for there can be no safety to the public while the criminal is unreformed. The punishment of the prison must, from its nature, be temporary; perpetual confinement can be meted out to a few great crimes only. ”

“ After the overthrow of slavery and the ratification of the Thirteenth Amendment to the Constitution, Mr. Sumner gave no wise aid to the work of reconstructing the government upon the basis of the new conditions that had been created by the war and by the abolition of slavery. As every guarantee for freedom contains some element of enslavement over or against some who are not within the guarantee, men sometimes hesitate as to the wisdom of accepting guarantees of rights in one direction which work a limitation of rights or privileges in other directions. ”

“ Allow me to say that, in taking that hand, the hand of the people of Massachusetts, and having listened in your voice to the sentiments and feelings of the people of Massachusetts, I indeed cannot forbear to believe that humanity has arrived at a great turning point in its destinies, because such a sight was never yet seen on earth.
"Conquerors, triumphant and proud of success, confer honors and glory on a poor exile, having nothing to speak for him but his misfortunes.
"Sir, the spirit of liberty is lasting; liberty cannot die, because it has become the common sentiment of all humanity. ”

“ It is as great a privilege for the wealthy as for the poor to have an opportunity to send their children to good public schools. It is a maxim in education that the teacher must first comprehend the pupil mentally and morally; and might not many of the errors of individual and public life be avoided, if the citizen, from the first, were to have an accurate idea of the world in which he is to live? The demand of labor upon education, as they are connected with every material interest of society, is, that no one [Pg 43] shall be neglected. The mind of a nation is its capital. ”

“ When we contrast our institutions with those of any other country, how ought we to thank God for the measure of personal happiness and political security we have enjoyed.
Not that our institutions are perfect,—nor that there is nothing which the philanthropist may deplore or the statesman condemn. All the anticipations of our ancestors have not been realized. The past is not all perfect; the future will not always cheer us with sunshine and smiles; but he is a misanthrope who allows his opinions to be controlled by the exceptions to the general current of our national career. ”